


Cast Away

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9295316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: Kara and Lee crash-land on a tropical island. Just fruit and fish and frakking pilots.





	

They’d been marooned on the island for sixty-two days when Lee fell out of the tree.

Kara, who was sitting on the rocks and knotting a new fishing net out of the sticky palm fronds she’d gathered, heard the three small clunks followed by a bigger crash and was already up and running into the woods. She found Lee sprawled under the tree, pineapples strewn around his head, his eyes closed and very, very still.

Panic clawed at her chest as she leaned over him, shaking his shoulders. “LEE! Hey, Apollo! Wake up!” He didn’t move. She ran her hands over skin browned by the sun but could feel no broken bones, no blood. Her mind raced. She could go and drag the medkit out of the downed raptor but she wasn’t sure what good it would do if she didn’t know what to fix. Kara gripped his face, thumbs pressing into his cheeks, her voice a furious growl. “Godsdammit, Lee, if you die and leave me alone on this motherfrakking island, I’m going to find a way to follow your sorry ass into the afterlife and kick it so frakking hard you’ll—”

His eyes fluttered open suddenly and Kara squeaked in surprise and launched herself at him, her arms circling his shoulders and pulling him halfway off the ground. A beat later she felt him return the embrace, his arms wrapping around her back, and his voice soft and breathless in her ear saying, “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of inflicting the wrath of Starbuck on all those poor innocent souls in Hades.”

She let go suddenly and he dropped back on one elbow, wincing, but he grinned when Kara glared at him. And she felt a sudden rush of relief and affection so strong her eyes stung, and she had to turn away. Kara covered, taking her time getting to her feet and carefully wiping her sandy palms clean on her cut-offs.

“If I’d died, it would be your fault, you know.” Lee said casually, squinting as he peered up at her. “If you hadn’t _insisted_ on wanting pineapple for breakfast…”

Kara rolled her eyes and reached down to grip his hand, pulling him up off the ground and onto his feet. “Hey, I already catch all the fish around here. Had to make you pull your weight somehow.” She ducked down again to sweep up the pineapples that had fallen, smirking when she turned to face him and stacking the prickly fruit in his arms. “Besides, it was damn hilarious watching you try to climb up that tree trunk. Gotta get my kicks where I can find them these days.”

She winked and strolled back to their makeshift camp and Lee followed behind, lost in thought. It was hard to believe it’d already been two months since they’d gotten caught in that electrical storm during the recon mission. Racetrack and Spender had both died trying to land them safely on this new, unfamiliar planet and while Lee was immensely grateful that he and Kara had managed to survive the crashes (miraculously unscathed for the most part too), the guilt still caught up with him sometimes, making it hard to breathe.

The first few weeks they’d watched the skies obsessively, but no familiar aircraft—friend or foe—appeared among the stars. Hope dwindled slowly, and one night, as they sat on the beach and looked up into the dark expanse, Kara had started laughing. A low chuckle bloomed into a big, hiccupping bleating as Lee had looked on in confusion.

“What’s so funny?”

“Gods, between us we’ve nearly died, what? A hundred times? A thousand?” She shook her head, hands swiping at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Who would’ve frakking thought it’d end like this, huh?” She’d lain back on the sand, holding her stomach, giggles turning to gasps until she finally quieted. Lee had only managed a strained smile, not quite finding so much humor in their predicament. But later that night, Kara had come to him, limbs straddling his in the darkness, and she’d kissed him like she meant it, and the shape of his hope changed a bit.

They’d spent the next few weeks traveling as far as they could, traversing the dense jungle, but found no people, just acres of green foliage and a variety of animals. One afternoon they’d spotted a wild boar in the undergrowth, several clicks from their camp and Kara had chased it for nearly two hours before finally giving up, though she still vowed with a gleam in her eye to return and hunt it down on the days they got particularly sick of fish and fruit.

The ocean seemed to stretch endlessly, no neighboring coasts in sight no matter how far along the beach they walked. Lee suggested they try to build a boat anyway, maybe chance striking out to find civilization, but Kara had paid little mind to the suggestion, always finding some other project to immerse herself in.

Now Lee laid the pineapples down on their makeshift table cobbled together from bits of the console that’d broken free on impact. Kara flipped out her knife, sharpened it on a small rock before grabbing one of the spiny fruits. Lean muscles shifted under ruddy skin as she sawed through the tough shell and his eyes swept from sun-streaked hair to dirty bare feet and back up, stopping on her smile.

She smiled all the time now. Incongruous as it seemed, Kara was in her element here. There was sand rather than grease under her nails now but she looked as comfortable stretched out on the hammock they’d rigged as she had lying under her viper. There was something primal, something elemental about her here. As the days passed, it’d become harder and harder to picture her on Galactica, as if that had been all a crazy nightmare and this was the reality. This was their reality, Lee reminded himself.

He watched as she stabbed the fruit aggressively, tongue peeking out between her teeth as she wrestled golden slices free. She grinned and tossed the knife down, picking one up with both hands and taking a huge bite out of the glistening fruit. Juice ran down her chin and Kara swiped the back of her hand against her skin as Lee stared.

“You’re really fine with this, aren’t you?”

She looked at him and rolled her eyes. “Fine, you want me to climb the tree next time, I’ll climb the tree.”

“No, I mean—” he gestured around them with a sweep of his arm. “THIS. You don’t miss Galactica at all, do you?”

She frowned at him. “Of course, I do. You really think I don’t miss the Old Man or Helo? Gods, sometimes I even miss my bird! But we’re here now, Lee. What do you want me to do? Cry about it?”

“I don’t know, Kara. I don’t know. Maybe,” and he can feel a restless irritation wash over him, as he scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Maybe I just want to understand how you can seem so godsdamn okay with this!”

Kara glared at him now, her brow creasing. “You want to know how I’m okay with the fact that we don’t have to spend every single motherfrakking minute of our lives on red alert now? How I’m okay with the fact that every morning when I wake up, my first thought isn’t that one of us might not make it through the godsdamned day?”

She flung her arms out, eyes wide. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, Lee and there’s no one here! No expectations, nothing to fight, no one tracking every single frakking mistake we make.” She laughed harshly. “Sometimes I don’t even think the Gods are watching.” Kara shook her head. “Lee, for the first time in a really, really long time, I feel…free,” she paused. “So, yes, I am godsdamn okay with that.”

He was speechless for a minute, but something still niggled at him. “Maybe you are now, Kara, but what about in a year or six months? What about the rest of our lives? Is this enough? Nothing but sand and fish and fruit and—”

His torrent of fear was stopped by Kara’s mouth closing over his. Her lips were soft and sweet, sticky from the pineapple juices, and her hands were cupping his face, holding him close. She pulled back and looked at him, staring into his eyes, and her voice was velvet on steel. “And you.”

Slowly, understanding dawned of what she was trying to tell him. Then Lee felt it suddenly, like it was a physical thing. The fear taking leave, the joy swelling in his chest at the words he’d always longed to hear her say. His smile stretched impossibly wide as he slipped his arms around Kara to pull her closer.

She kissed him once more, soft lips brushing his cheek this time, and when she pulled back, she was grinning again, head tilted, nose crinkling slightly. “Besides, I really like pineapple.”

**Author's Note:**

> Someone correctly pointed out to me after I posted this that I had confused pineapples (which grow close to the ground) and coconuts. Whoops! On this island, pineapples apparently grow on trees. Go figure!


End file.
